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March 28, 2006
Council on Foreign Relations
Contact: Anya Schmemann, DC Communications, +1-202-518-3419 or aschmemann@cfr.org
March 28, 2006—While the “threat of a nuclear attack by terrorists has never been greater,” the U.S. government has yet to make prevention the highest priority, says a new Council on Foreign Relations report that outlines ways to reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism.
“The probability of nuclear attack has increased because traditional deterrence—threatening assured destruction against a valued asset such as a national territory—does not work against the terrorist groups most likely to covet nuclear weapons,” says the report, Preventing Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism, authored by Council Fellow for Science and Technology Charles D. Ferguson.
“Securing and eliminating vulnerable nuclear materials and weapons offer points of greatest leverage in preventing nuclear terrorism,” says the report. “For these activities, much more national and international action is urgently needed to address the problems of Pakistan’s highly enriched uranium [HEU] and nuclear arsenal; Russia’s highly enriched uranium; highly enriched uranium at more than one hundred civilian facilities in dozens of countries; and tactical nuclear weapons.”
“The biggest impediment to reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism involving Pakistan is President Musharraf’s expressed belief that terrorists cannot make nuclear weapons,” says Ferguson. The United States should try to “convince [President Musharraf and Pakistani leaders] that certain terrorist groups can build crude, but devastating, nuclear weapons if these groups have access to enough highly enriched uranium.”
“Securing Russian weapons-usable nuclear materials is vitally important but not adequate,” says the report. A recently released Council-sponsored, Independent Task Force report on U.S. policy toward Russia underscores this point: “The United States must expand its cooperation with Russia to keep the most dangerous international actors from acquiring the most dangerous weapons, technologies, and materials. This is a fundamental American security interest—one that is far easier to protect if Washington and Moscow work together and far harder if they do not.”
“Preventing nuclear terrorism is also closely connected to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries,” writes Ferguson. “By reducing the number of countries with nuclear weapons or weapons-usable nuclear materials, terrorists will have fewer places to buy or steal these critical components of nuclear terrorism.”
The report identifies areas where efforts have fallen short in securing and eliminating nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials, and offers recommendations to plug these gaps:
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